Interview with Ekaterina Samutsevich

Interview with Ekaterina Samutsevich, member of Pussy Riot. Translated into English by Katya Tolstaya and Stella Rock.


Methodological questions
Your action at the Christ the Saviour Cathedral evoked a wide range of reactions from inside and outside Russia
Yes, of course it is possible. To seek understanding one should rely on facts and on knowledge of the exact context of the events in question. Of course, here you need to know a lot of true information in order to sort out what happened, and not blindly believe everything you read in the media or what is said by outsiders who were not directly involved in these events. I think some answers will appear after a while; 'time will put everything in its place', as the saying goes. And those who have decided to investigate the events in our story can contact the participants in events personally, and get first-hand information.
The interpretive range included, on the one hand, a perception throughout the world, even by Western liberals, of the Pussy Riot performance at the Christ the Saviour Cathedral as anti-religious, or even blasphemous. An entirely opposite view was, on the other hand, offered by the Orthodox. How did the association of your performance with the tradition of yurodstvo [holy foolishness] emerge? Did the members of Pussy Riot play any role in connecting the performance with yurodstvo? And arising from this: what connection do you see between Pussy Riot and the tradition of yurodstvo?
Honestly, when we were discussing this action, and when we were preparing this action, no one spoke out about the tradition of yurodstvo. No one talked about it at all and no one discussed it, everyone thought and discussed the action solely in terms of politically artistic context. We departed from the понимание другого, в данном случае вас как группы и каждого из вас, как личности, и если «да», то, как следует искать это понимание, при том, что так много расхождений в интерпретациях?
The idea to link [to] the tradition of yurodstvo, as I understand it, appeared later, during the trial, and the idea did not come from us at all. But I find it interesting that such a reaction emerged amongst the Orthodox. I do not know who first began to associate our performance with the tradition of yurodstvo, I have no information about this, and I think that it is not important, perhaps, this idea was just hanging in the air. The idea of anonymity is an artistic idea, it is part of the group's image.
Real people are real people. I think the author (in our case, a collective author) and his personality should not completely coincide with his work. There is no point projecting all the qualities of an artistic creation onto the identities of its authors, otherwise this analysis will lack evaluation of the artwork itself.
Therefore the work differs from the personal characteristics of the author, otherwise we basically wouldn't have had to create anything, or think anything up, but would have straight away started to connect with, for example, the same Gundyaev, and to try to explain something to him, and that would have looked ridiculous. Especially since explaining something to people like that makes almost no sense, theirs is a completely different world, in the case of Gundyaev -a mafia world, even. We had symbolic, rather than direct, dialogue in mind here. I think, again, it is worth distinguishing the biographical lives of real people from fictional artistic images. Images are invented specially to remove the superfluous and to enhance the desired elements in an artistic work, and they are created to convey only certain ideas, and not all ideas at once. Therefore, face and biography were fully [cast aside] in the PR image, leaving only the ideas of feminism, anti-authoritarianism and left-wing тем же Гундяевым, и пытаться чтото ему объяснить, и это выглядело бы нелепо. Тем более, что объяснять что-то подобным людям практически не имеет смысла, у них совсем другой мир, в случае с Гундяевым -еще мафиозный. Скорее, мы здесь имели в виду диалог символический, а не прямой.
With regard to the revision of art, art always tries to revise itself, it is practically obligatory for any artist to do so. How successfully this is done is a question for each particular case. Apart from PR and the group Voina [War], there are many other artists who are also radically changing the classical view of art, for example those same The Yes Men.
The tendency to change the view of art and to reconsider its role already emerged a long time ago, officially in the mid-nineteenth century, with the rise of photography. Thus, it turns out that all the artists engaged with this issue now are, in effect, merely continuing the tradition of twentieth century art, in other words, the idea of a new protest art is in itself not new at all.

Punk protest is subject to what M.
Bakhtin called 'lowering'. Do you not think that in order to engage in dialogue (see above) it would be more effective to 'elevate' one's interlocutor to a higher level?
I do not agree with the interpretation of such art as lowering or reduction. Every appearance of a new approach to understanding the role of art is always seen as lowering, even as vulgarisation. But time shows that in the end it was the most appropriate response to the processes that were happening in society then. So I think it is not necessary to elevate anyone anywhere, you just need to continue to seek the most appropriate forms of artistic reactions to current life in society. Furthermore, a work of art is not a dialogue in the classic sense, where антиавторитарность и левые идеи. То что уголовный процесс раскрыл лица троих участниц, их биографии никак не влияет на изначальную задумку образа группы. Как теперь все это воспринимается вместе, это уже другой вопрос.

Some gender related questions
Have you received any letters supporting or criticising your actions and the performance of Punk Prayer from Orthodox women? If so, what has been the nature of the response from Orthodox women? Did that response (positive or negative) influence the way you yourself evaluate your action and its forms in retrospect?
Yes, I received several letters in the Detention Unit. The support was emotional, one could feel that these people wanted to do something to help and to support us. In general, the support was purely human, which, of course, was very nice. I, personally, did not receive any negative reactions. Evidently they did not dare or did not want to write, after all, that requires spending time and energy.
To write a letter to the Detention Unit is, of course, more difficult than to write a comment on the Internet.
In principle, the letters had no impact on my assessment of the group's activities, but while sitting in the Detention Unit they, of course, helped [me] not to be upset by what was said on television in April 2012, about how all Orthodox people were allegedly terribly outraged by our act. In this way, I received yet further confirmation that all that is simply false.

Pussy Riot is a feminist group. How primary are aspects of feminism in relation to, for example, the political and socio-religious protest of the group?
Feminism itself has emerged as a socio-political movement, and remains thus today. Therefore, it cannot be separated from politics and the social issues of the society.
No religious context was ever created for the band by its members; outsiders started to ascribe it to the group only after the performance at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour.

Had you ever read the works of any Western Christian feminist theologians (specifically theologians, not feminist thinkers in general)?
No, I have not.

The woman on the ambo became the symbol of the new role of women in the Orthodox Church. What kind of attitude would you like to see in the Russian Church towards women? What role could a woman play in the Russian Church?
I would want a respectful attitude both towards women and towards men.
The problem, of course, lies in the strict hierarchy which remains in the church.
The quite unpleasant context of the ROC Moscow Patriarchate (MP) is also added here. The activities of this organisation in general look awful.
For example, MP now builds neighbourhood churches in every district in Moscow, using the Moscow city budget, cutting down trees planted by Muscovites, or removing children's playgrounds. Muscovites protest and ask that kindergartens and schools be built with Moscow budget funds, not modern replicas without any value. Patriarch Kirill just shrugs and calls the opinion of Muscovites 'worthless provocation'. Mayor Sobyanin schemes with him and continues to ignore the opinion of the Muscovites. I would like to see the Moscow Patriarchate just show some respect for the opinions of individuals and the society in which it exists, regardless of whether they are believers or not. Thus far one sees only grasping business on the part of the MP, mixed with создавалось, его начали приписывать сторонние наблюдатели только после выступления в ХХС.
illegal use of the civic budget and a boorish attitude towards civil society.
As regards the role of women in the church itself, it seems to me that it should not differ from their role in civil, that is, secular, society. A woman should not be perceived as a person who has always to obey someone, to do or not to do something, basically, as a person who owes something to someone all the time. Even in civil society not everything is OK with gender rights for women, but still, owing to the huge efforts of the left-wing feminist movement the position of women in Russian society has greatly improved compared to past centuries. And if some of these achievements were brought into the Russian Orthodox Church, this would already be great progress.

A few theological and political questions
What would dialogue between the Church and contemporary artists be like in an ideal world? What would be the dream attitude of the Church towards the protest movement?
It seems to me that the issue is not really dialogue, but the basic attitude towards the individual person which the ROC is now promoting. It feels as if the Russian Orthodox Church, particularly the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, thinks that only the head of this organisation may be a human being and a personality, all the rest cannot be accepted in similar fashion, since it would signify equality with that same patriarch, which, as I understand it, contradicts the current principles of the Orthodox Church. As long as such an attitude holds, there will be no adequate attitude towards art and the protest movement.

What most surprised you about the responses to Punk Prayer among believers?
I was surprised by the negative reactions that I saw online, in truth I am not sure that these are believers; at least, they called themselves so.
Here the inability to navigate through the different sources of information was surprising, believing everything that is said on television, or what this Kirill Gundyaev and other 'authoritative' people are saying, and not trying to understand the information with the help of logic and common sense, but with fear and hatred.
Your performance at Christ the Saviour Cathedral has become a litmus paper, revealing an entire spectrum of tensions in Russian society : social, political, religious, [and related to] worldview. In what respect do you see this litmus-paper effect as a prolepsis of (in other words, as anticipating) the litmus paper effect of current developments in Ukraine?
Our action has nothing to do with the events in Ukraine. I do not think that it is worth somehow connecting the two entirely different phenomena. It is better to consider the events in Ukraine as events in Ukraine, since as you know there were many causes of their own there: the corruption of the Ukrainian authorities, tension between speakers of different languages, and so on. These causes have nothing to do with the group PR.

Your attitude to current events in Ukraine, and in your opinion, is something like this is possible in Russia?
In Russia, sometimes everything is possible, but I and all my acquaintances feel as if, in our country, the screws are being strongly tightened. On television, Russians are being specially set against Что удивило вас больше всего в реакциях верующих на панк-молебен?
В России иногда все возможно, но сейчас я и все мои знакомые чувствуем, что у нас в стране сильно закручиваются гайки. По телевизору специально настраивают россиян против Ukrainians and frightened with war against who knows whom, while laws which are very dangerous for society are being quietly passed. For example, the law on meetings, which violates the Constitution of the Russian Federation, in essence now bans people from coming out to [protest] meetings under threat of criminal prosecution. Or the limitation of anonymity on the internet. And of course, the law that forbids LGBT-propaganda, which has already been widely discussed in the West.
As regards events in Ukraine, what is actually happening there is visible only to the Ukrainians themselves. I do not know who is really provoking the continuation of the war, but I would like to wish the Ukrainians the swiftest cessation of hostilities and restoration of peaceful life, which I'm sure all thinking people want. But it seriously worries me that, in our country, an entirely real harassment of Ukrainians is unfolding; they are called all manner of names here, as a result, a new wave of nationalism is emerging. I see this with my own eyes and, of course, all this greatly disturbs me.
Yet again, it is surprising how adult people so easily believe all the lies and dirt that comes from the Russian television screens about the inhabitants of Ukraine.

Do you see a connection between your
Punk Prayer and the prayers of the protesters on Maidan? Their prayers were much more traditional. Still, might there be something in praying itself as a performative or ecstatic act that transcends (goes beyond the boundaries of) political power and control? Was this intentionally incorporated in the Punk Prayer?
We did not go deeply into the tradition of prayer itself. Of course, performativity is visible in both prayer and in all sacred rites. This is an interesting topic. Besides, as far as I know, rites and their performativity were well established among the pagans, evidently the Orthodox Church appropriated these traditions. But I do not have the requisite education and extensive knowledge in the field of religion and religious practices, I think this question would be better posed to experts.
Nadezhda said in court that you are not against Christianity, but for true Christianity. What, then, is real Christianity for you? What values , ideas, are primary?
I hold left-wing atheistic views, I cannot say that I support the view that Christianity should have the leading role in people's moral life, as representatives of the authorities love to say in Russia now.
I think moral and morality should be secular concepts. As I understood it then, Nadya meant the situation, when the ROC of the Moscow Patriarchate simulates particular values (love, humanity, and so on), while in fact, other values are visible (proximity to power, money, the ability to crush with force and to lie publically).
What values should be the primary is clearer to Christians themselves, but it seems to me that they should not differ from the values of secular society, that is individual liberty, equality, a fair distribution of resources and education.
Честно говоря, мне бы хотелось, чтобы российское общество помогло beginning to feel sort of embarrassed for my country, that we have this attitude towards prisoners, and that we find ourselves in a situation where citizens and organisations of other countries are helping us with the issue of human rights in prisons.
Of course, the Western community cannot practically have an impact on our bureaucracy, corruption and the desire of some members of the Federal Penitentiary Service to play the swindler.
Maybe the Western community can help Russian organisations that have decided to engage in human rights in prisons, because they see more clearly what is going on in our prison system, for example, one of the largest organisations is 'Memorial'. Maybe Western organisations that have experience in their own countries could share their experiences with Russian organisations. But one has to ask these organisations themselves. Besides, as far as I know, such interaction between some human rights organisations already exists.
What are your personal plans for the future?
Together with my acquaintances from the feminist community, I am registering an NGO (non-governmental organisation) -'the Vera Ermolayeva Foundation for the Support of Women's Initiatives in the field of contemporary art', to help female artists in need of support for their projects or in case of harassment by the authorities, as we believe that it is very important to support the arts and artists here, especially if they are women who often face gender discrimination and are simply crushed by the machismo art scene.